Shift Report

How we mined a lot of coal, and how most of us lived to tell about it: a not terribly serious history of mining life in the Upper Ohio Valley. More

Coal miners have a way of becoming heroes to kids. They are, for the most part, people who know what they can do. They drive big machines and go deep underground in the dark. They have hard-toed boots and hard hats and those fascinating cap lamps. They are Authorized Personnel Only, so powerful they can walk past doors with those signs on them. They can work in a group or survive alone. They look at stuff fit to turn some people to quivering Jello, and they don’t turn a hair. Everything about a miner is matter-of-fact, from the quiet clothes to the plain solid walk, because anybody who really knows the work doesn't have to brag or be flashy.This is a small part of their history.

Becky Morgan, nee Steadman, has lived pretty much her entire life on Pipe Creek since Elmer and Helen brought her home from City Hospital in August 1958. She managed to graduate from Shadyside High School, in 1975, and The Ohio State University in 1978. She wrote a humor column for the Shadyside Lantern-Tribune from the mid-1980s to 1998 and is the author of four local histories, including this one. Her husband Tom has put up with her for thirty years. They have one son and numerous cats.